Civ V leader joins Elemental dev

The lead designer and gameplay programmer of Civilization V - Jon Shafer - has been hired, double-quick, by Elemental: War of Magic maker Stardock.

There Shafer will set about first rescuing Elemental before leading his own team on a mysterious new project, he told Big Download.

Shafer's exit from Civilization developer Firaxis, after nearly six years, emerged towards the end of last month. There he rose speedily from the rank-and-file of a mod-maker to becoming ship-steerer of the acclaimed Civilization series. He maintains that he left Firaxis on good terms.

Shafer won't say anything more about his new project for now, but insists that one of the attractions of Stardock was the freedom to create games that he wanted to make.